HOWTO: Speeding up Debian

[Lou]

Actually, the X system doesn't need one. X creates a new one when you call it.

Ex: I have TTY1 and TTY2 enabled as consoles, When I hit startx from the command line X shows up in what would be TTY3.

Noted. Thanks for the tip, bud.

[pdean1]

Wajig is a program you wont have to worry about breaking your system?
Have you encountered any problems ever after running it?

[Lou]

No, it's part of the Debian repos, it's been around for a while, used mostly by Debian administrators.

Here's a good article and postings by some users.
http://debaday.debian.net/2007/03/18/wa ... front-end/

Yesterday, i had a problem with dist-upgrading in Sid and installing the upgrades for some libraries, i did:

sudo wajig fix-configure
sudo wajig fix-missing
sudo wajig fix-install

and it worked right away. I like the aptitude's options:

wajig installr Install package and associated recommended packages
wajig installrs Install package and recommended and suggested packages
wajig installs Install package and associated suggested packages
wajig install/dist Install packages from specified distribution

[llivv]

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[th0rgal]

Hi,

I installed initng 0.6.10 (from the initng own debian reps, see www.initng.org). My laptop used to boot in about 1mn15 with old sysv-init. It now boots in ... 16sec! from grub to X start-up. Very impressive ... initng is improving quite fast. There are still some issues but it is very easy to maintain. And there is no overwrite of the older /sbin/init so you can switch from one to the other by editing your boot params. You can even test timing with bootchard, if you are not convinced

[llivv]

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[llivv]

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[Lou]

Lou, you're right! ice is nice! Nice HOWTO too!

I've tried them all, and for my money, icewm is the one for me. It's highly configurable, i moved the taskbar to the top and put it in autohide and went to the theme i chose:

$ sudo jpico /usr/share/icewm/themes/Area51/default.theme

and changed the line:

TitleBarHeight=20

from 20 to 0, that way i got no title bar, the whole combo of no title bar and a taskbar in autohide gives a lot more real estate on my screen.

saved/exited

Then,
Ctrl+Alt+Delete+r
that restarted icewm, making all the changes effective.

I close my apps and manage my browsers manually (it's faster). Nothing is wasted, don't have the distraction of the mouse, just work with everything maximized. I have never had to deal with a bug in icewm.

[llivv]

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[DeanLinkous]

I am a mouse person but icewm is great! The config files are all just text and have many examples so IMO that is the best way to configure it. Or you iceconf/icepref/icemc and look at what it changes about the text files and remember them.

Not sure if it was mentioned but.... XFE is a awesome lite GUI/clicky file manager!

Good info Lou...and everyone else!

[Bulkley]

Keeping your system lean and mean, requires maintenance:

1. Removing is not enough, you have to PURGE! and not only that, then you have to go to your /home and enable the 'hidden files', and remove manually any vestige of the app you wiped out (dot files).

Yes it does require maintenence. From time to time I think about doing a fresh minimalist install, just to clean it up. The reason I don't is that I know that it would only be a few months before I would have to start purging again. So, my constant challenge is getting rid of what I no longer need.

Question: does removing the dot files help speed it up?

[Pobega]

Keeping your system lean and mean, requires maintenance:

1. Removing is not enough, you have to PURGE! and not only that, then you have to go to your /home and enable the 'hidden files', and remove manually any vestige of the app you wiped out (dot files).

Yes it does require maintenence. From time to time I think about doing a fresh minimalist install, just to clean it up. The reason I don't is that I know that it would only be a few months before I would have to start purging again. So, my constant challenge is getting rid of what I no longer need.

Question: does removing the dot files help speed it up?

It's barely noticable, it probably only speeds up doing "ls" in your home directory, or opening Nautilus/Thunar/PCManFM if you have "View Hidden Files" selected.

Removing the hidden recipe files is good if you just want a clean home directory, so that you can "ls -a" in peace.

[Lou]

Question: does removing the dot files help speed it up?

All your config files for the app you just 'purged' sometimes stay put, if you wanna clean up everything you have to delete them.

afterwards,

$ sudo apt-get clean

I do apt-get clean 2-3 times a week, debfoster is great too, and once you install 'localepurge' it keeps your skystem free of locales you never use automatically.

Edit: as for speeding it up, maybe not much, but it keeps your box clean and mean, and saves future headaches.

[Lou]

Not sure if it was mentioned but.... XFE is a awesome lite GUI/clicky file manager!

xfe is my favorite file manager, it's light and fast and easy to use, right click on a file and choose from the menu:

open with, open, delete, move, copy, paste, extract to, you name it, plus you can drag it and drop it wherever you want.

[Lou]

I was able to do almost everything in ice that you posted above. I have Area51 as a theme with one user and aeteria with another. I'm wondering if I now ( after moving config files around) understand why you mentioned grabbing the theme from it's default location.

As in everything in life, the first time you do something, you're a dummy. After you do it 5 times, you are good, after 20 times, you are a genius!

Read:
HOWTO: IceWM Basic Configuration
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=5450

it will answer some questions.

Then you begin to invent your own tricks, so working with your box becomes easier, second nature.

Coincidently, ( you say you don't bother with the mouse and use your keymap instead) which is probably why I can't figure out what iceconf is doing underneath the gui. I'm going to try renaming my $/.ice as well as my just recently created /etc/ice directories and see if I can't map things better that way.

Iceconf is there because you install it, in the icewm howto and the wiki from icewm.org, you're supposed to create an .icewm in your /home.

If it is not there yet, then:

$ mkdir /home/your_name/.icewm

$ nano .icewm/preferences

and put there your preferences, same with winoptions and keys:

$ nano .icewm/keys
$ nano .icewm/winoptions

But as times passes, you start getting smart, and taking shortcuts:

I chose all my preferences, winoptions, and keys and put them all in an 'icewm' folder i created in my web mail (yahoo mail), so when i do an new debian install, and i do:

$ sudo apt-get install icewm icewm-themes menu

i go to my web mail and copy/paste my config, it takes 5 minutes:

.icewm/preferences

OpaqueMove=0
OpaqueResize=0
SmartPlacement=1
MenuMouseTracking=1
ModSuperIsCtrlAlt=1
UseMouseWheel=1
QuickSwitch=1
AutoReloadMenus=1
ShowProgramsMenu=1
ShowThemesMenu=1
ShowHelp=1
TerminalCommand="aterm"
ShutdownCommand="sudo halt"
RebootCommand="sudo reboot"
WorkspaceNames=" 1 ", " 2 "


ShowTaskBar=1
TaskBarAutoHide=1
TaskBarShowClock=1
TaskBarShowAPMStatus=0
TaskBarAtTop=1
TaskBarShowAPMStatus=0
TaskBarShowAPMTime=0
TaskBarShowMailboxStatus=1
TaskBarShowWindows=1
TaskBarShowShowDesktopButton=0
TaskBarShowTray=1
TaskBarShowWindowIcons=0
TaskBarShowCPUStatus=0
TaskBarShowNetStatus=0
TaskBarShowCollapseButton=0
TaskBarWorkspacesLeft=1
TimeFormat="%a %d %b %R"
TaskBarShowShowDesktopButton=0
TaskBarShowWindowListMenu=0
TaskBarShowMailboxStatus=0
NormalTaskBarFontName="-*-sans-medium-r-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*"
NormalTaskBarFontNameXft="sans-serif:size=10"
ActiveTaskBarFontName="-*-sans-r-*-*-*-100-*-*-*-*-*-*"
ActiveTaskBarFontNameXft="sans-serif:size=10"

.icewm/keys

key "Ctrl+Alt+F12" aterm
key "Ctrl+Alt+F11" xfe
key "Ctrl+Alt+F10" xchat
key "Ctrl+Alt+F9" xzgv
key "Ctrl+Alt+F8" iceweasel
key "Ctrl+Alt+F7" opera
key "Ctrl+Alt+F6" icedove
key "Ctrl+Alt+F5" aterm -e scrot -c -d 10

key "Alt+Ctrl+KP_Divide" aumix -v -5 # lower volume
key "Alt+Ctrl+KP_Multiply" aumix -v +5 # raise volume

Here Ctrl+Alt = Windows key

the reason for that is, that the windows key does not interfere with other apps default keys i use. Besides it's easier for me to move from right to left.

.icewm/winoptions

aterm.startMaximized: 1
icedove.startMaximized: 1
xchat.startMaximized: 1
xzgv.startMaximized: 1
iceweasel.startMaximized: 1
xfe.startMaximized: 1

in winoptions you can knock off the titlebar also but i like to go to the theme so EVERY app appears with no title bar:

$ sudo updatedb
$ locate icewm
$ sudo nano /usr/share/icewm/themes/Area51/default.theme

once in the theme file i edit the line:

TitleBarHeight=17

and leave it like this:

TitleBarHeight=0

save/exit

then i restart icewm:

Ctrl + Alt + Delete + r

the reason i do this, is because i use a 17" crt, i want more real estate, like i said you configure icewm the way it's better for you. The taskbar will be at the top a la Gnome in auto-hide.

Last, i put this line in my .bashrc and .bash_profile:

alias startx='startx -- -dpi 80'

save/exit/reboot to take effect, if the fonts are too small, increase the -dpi number to 85,90.95. etc until you're happy.


Clear as mud??

[Hevoos]

When I ran sysvconfig I noticed that I have three daemons running that seems to do the same thing, these are:
cron
atd
and anacron

Do I really need all three of them, or can I just remove atd and anacron?

[Lou]

This is up to you, do

$ apt-cache show

for cron, anacron and at

and draw your own conclusions, i opted for letting them run.

[Bulkley]

Question: do I need ppp and pppconfig? I haven't used a dial-up modem since I switched to adsl which used pppoe. Or, are they mixed somehow?

[Lou]

I don't really know, i didn't touch them just to play it safe. Maybe somebody else will enlighten us

[mzilikazi]

Question: do I need ppp and pppconfig? I haven't used a dial-up modem since I switched to adsl which used pppoe. Or, are they mixed somehow?

They are optional packages.